Out of all the marketing solutions available today, Marketo is one of the most recognized and respected. It’s no surprise this powerful system is on many software buyers’ shortlists, but savvy marketers know to consider several options before making a final purchase decision.

In this article, we’ll give you an overview of Marketo’s offerings to help you evaluate it against competing vendors. We’ll also introduce you to five popular systems that may be a better fit for your company, chosen based on online search traffic and user reviews.

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About Marketo

Marketo is such an industry titan that a private equity firm paid $1.79 billion to buy the company in May 2016. It’s used by a number of notable clients, such as Panasonic, GE Healthcare and George Washington University.

The cloud-based marketing automation platform serves all industries and business sizes, though smaller companies with tighter budgets may need a more affordable solution.

Marketo is appealing to buyers that want to choose exactly which functionalities they want. It offers the following five modules that can either be purchased separately, or bundled together as an integrated suite:

Lead management

Email marketing

Consumer marketing

Mobile marketing

Customer base marketing

Regardless of how you mix and match modules, Marketo requires a quarterly or annual subscription fee with a year-long contract. The vendor also offers event, content and social media marketing capabilities.

Marketo clients who rated the system on Software Advice’s website praise its “rapid-fire content creation” capabilities and “excellent integrations.” To read more user reviews, click here.

Finally, we should note that Marketo doesn’t offer website management tools, so marketers searching for such capabilities may be better served by one of the alternative products highlighted below.

Most Asked-About Alternatives

We identified these products by determining which products get the most online search traffic alongside Basecamp.

HubSpot

More than 19,000 customers use HubSpot’s marketing platform, both a popular and versatile system. It offers CRM as well as sales tools to companies interested in implementing an “all-in-one” integrated software suite. Users pay a monthly subscription fee, which is paid annually.

Here are some of HubSpot’s key capabilities:

Workflow automation

Email marketing

Lead generation

Lead management

Social marketing

Buyers considering HubSpot should be mindful of potential limitations of the products it is able to integrate with (e.g., email clients or POS systems). You may have to arrange for a third party to help you integrate HubSpot with some of your existing software systems.

Pardot

Pardot is CRM giant Salesforce’s marketing automation solution. It is best suited for midsize and enterprise companies, though there is some flexibility in its pricing structure. Pardot offers three plans with different costs according to functionality:

Pro. This plan includes all of the above, plus: advanced email analytics, email and landing page A/B testing and social profiles.

Ultimate. This plan includes all of the above, plus: custom user roles, custom object integration and a dedicated IP address.

The level of support also varies by plan (e.g., chat support for “Pro” versus phone support for “Ultimate”). Pardot users sign a year-long contract, which is renewed annually.

For a side-by-side comparison of these two systems, check out our Marketo vs. Pardot page.

Oracle Marketing Cloud

Oracle Marketing Cloud is a solution for both B2B and B2C marketers. This cloud-based product is a compendium of many Oracle acquisitions throughout the years, including the Eloqua, Responsys and BlueKai products. It has a multitude of pricing tiers that vary by functionality and number of users.

Key capabilities include:

Targeting and segmentation

Lead management

Marketing measurement

Sales enablement

Consumer profiles

Email marketing

Display advertising

Companies interested in purchasing additional sales and customer service capabilities can do so through integrations with Oracle’s many CRM products.

Top User-Rated Alternatives

Marketo has a 4 out of 5 star rating from real users who rated its performance on SoftwareAdvice.com. The next two products are here because they’re the highest-rated Marketo alternatives.

MailChimp

MailChimp is the leading Marketo competitor based on user ratings, scoring 4.6 out of 5 stars with 21 reviews. It is best known for its email marketing application targeted to SMBs, comparatively low cost and viral internet fame (thanks to its endearing ads in the popular “Serial” podcast).

Users tell us they’re impressed by how easy it is to implement MailChimp. Several praised the company’s straightforward pricing plan, which includes a free option for customers with fewer than 2,000 email subscribers.

Ten million MailChimp users create campaigns with the software’s robust email marketing capabilities. That said, MailChimp lacks features some marketing companies may require, such as search marketing and social media monitoring/listening.

Iterable

Iterable has an average rating of 4.6 out of five stars based on 11 customer reviews. Unlike MailChimp, this vendor is best suited for midsize and large businesses seeking advanced functionality and customization.

Reviewers on Software Advice praise the solution’s interface and support offerings. One user reports:

“Iterable is a step up from every other email software platform and has top of the line A/B testing, workflows and data visualization models. They make customization easy and allow our agency to send the best emails in the industry. Customer service is also fantastic.” —Luke, IMG

Next Steps

As you can see, Marketo has some stiff competition. We hope one of the products profiled in this article will help shape your software selection shortlist. For additional help, consider taking one of the following steps: